FSFE objects to claims of 'predatory pricing' in Free Software

on: 2013-07-29

In a recent antitrust submission to the
European Commission, a Microsoft-led coalition falsely claimed that the
distribution of Free Software free of charge hurts competition. FSFE has written
a letter to the European Commission's competition authorities to
refute this claim, and make it clear that Free Software is
critical for an open, competitive IT market.

In its letter, FSFE urges the Commission to consider the facts
properly before accepting these allegations at face value. "Free
Software is a boon for humankind. The only thing that it is
dangerous to is Microsoft's hopelessly outdated, restrictive
business model," says Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's president.

The so-called "FairSearch" coalition is essentially asking the
European Commission to favour a restrictive business model over a liberal one. This is
exactly the opposite of what competition regulators should do in order
to achieve a fair and open market.

"Free Software is not about price, it's about liberty, a guarantee of
competition and vendor independence. Asking to cripple Free Software
in order to allow proprietary vendors to sell their locked-down
systems is just absurd" says Carlo Piana, FSFE's General
Counsel. "The most substantial threat to competition in the mobile
space today are software patents, and we have repeatedly urged
antitrust authorities to address this problem," he adds.

FSFE asks the European Commission to dismiss the "FairSearch"
coalition's unfounded claims regarding predatory pricing, and not make
them part of whatever steps it decides to take in response to the
group's filing.